I interrupted her, “Get to.”
“Huh?” she replied, looking confused.
So, I continued, “It is not a matter of ‘having to’ forgive. You get to forgive.”
“Okaaaay,” she questioningly replied.
Taking that as permission, I continued, “Forgiving is something you do for you, not for the person you are forgiving. You are releasing yourself from the person and the situation that was hurtful. Most people miss that. And because of that, people don’t forgive. They hang onto the hurts. They carry the hurts with them, letting the hurts hold them back. Letting the hurts continue to harm.”
Perhaps you share the same misconception my client had. Or perhaps you just can’t stomach “forgive and forget,” another myth about forgiving.
Or perhaps, like many people, you do not know how to do it. You want to, you know you need to (for your own good), but you don’t know how.
Consider it your cheatsheet to forgiving.
Think of it as the map to forgiveness.